I wrote a letter, which editor Lori Browning of the Belleville News Democrat (Republican paper) kindly printed, in which I said that our failed county Treasurer, Kurt Prenzler (R), had brought crackpot Tea Party politics right in the front door of the treasurers office. Phil Chapman of Highland took exception to my statement, asserting that Prenzlers politics were not crackpot. Entitled to his opinion, Chapman did not argue, however, that they were not Tea Party. Chapmans assertion that Prenzler is not a crackpot should be considered in light of the fact that Chapman heads a group called the Silver Lake 9-12. They are followers of TV personality Glenn Beck, who argues for all things rightwing, pseudo-religious and in my view, crackpot. Chapmans background was exposed by one of our best local reporters, Sanford Schmidt of The Telegraph. Steve Horrell of the Intelligencer has also done a good job on the rightwing insurgency. We have a whole great bunch of rightwing angst churning in Madison County. It was chiefly stirred up by the Chamber of Commerce, which does not like that we have courts here which will hear personal injury cases against big businesses. Those businesses win here as often as anywhere else, but the Chamber prefers that judges perfunctorily toss all cases against businesses before they are heard. It saves money for dividends and stock buy-backs. Chapman and his crackp... uh, concerned citizens group, including Prenzler and the Chamber of Commerce launched a No Retention campaign to keep all of our county judges up for it at the time from being retained in a recent election. (All were retained with more than the required 60% margins.) Their crackp...err, divergent view was that all the judges of our county were corrupt. Never mind that a bunch of modestly educated working folks who had no experience with the judges or the courts didnt know how the judges were corrupt, they for sure knew why: they were many of them Democrats. It was a simple political principle, easily applied, entirely understandable to Tea Party crackp...ah, concerned citizens. Unfortunately for our local fringe, a court reform group that often opposes fair courts, came to the defense of our judges - as did our Madison League. These crackp...umm, guys rely on being able to operate a monologue. They dont do as well when their contingencies are discussed as well as those they assault.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 14:20:00 +0000
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